Science Fiction Though the Decades

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Richard Cowper isn’t a very accessible author, something which you
could say of many 1970’s and 1980’s authors whose novels and collections print any more, like this one-time publication collection. Regardless,
my exposure to Cowper has been favorable, the novels I’m combed having been of
rich diversity from humor (Profundis[1979]), to shades of science
fiction (The Road to Corlay [1978]), and fictional historical revival (ATapestry of Time [1982]). When I found a copy of Cowper short stories, I
was eager to see this diversity shown throughout. True to form, exhibiting his
multiple talents of humor, science fiction, and history, Out There Where the
Big Ships Go is a small tour of what Cowper is capable of: bringing
laughter (“Paradise Beach”), bringing heartache (“The Hertford Manuscript”),
but also serving up a large dose of boredom (“The Web of the Magi”). I’ve had
better experience with his novels, but there may still be gems of his out there
with one other collection, The Tithonian Factor and Other Stories
(1984).

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Out There Where the Big Ships Go (1979, novelette) – 3/5 – (29 pages)

The crew of The Icarus was sent beyond the planet Eridanus to a “planet
that they called ‘Dectire III’” (26). Inhabiting that planet were the humanoid
Eidotheans and the wondrous game they called Kalire, or The Game. While the
crew remained on the planet, the captain, Peter Henderson, being the most
proficient in the Game, was sent back to Earth so that they too could learn of
its exquisite delights. The one hundred forty-four squared board, “each of
which has its own name and ideogram” (27), is played with one hundred
forty-three pieces of double-sided coins: red and blue. The game mimics the
Eidotheans’ belief in the dichotomous struggle of the galaxy between the two
heavenly sisters of Kalirinos and Arimanos.

Having hardly aged a year since his departure, the still youthful
captain returned to an Earth two hundreds older than when he left. The world
was ripe for the introduction of The Game, with the Japanese “and their long
tradition of Zen and Go” (27) allowing them to understand The Game more clearly
than other early competitors. Later, the Russians and Chinese would come to
understand The Game, but still, Peter Henderson remained The Master.

At a tourney in the Caribbean, young Roger
Herzheim’s mother is attending The Game as a competitor thought nowhere near
the highly ranked Master, Peter Henderson. At breakfast, Roger spies the famous
man in the corner. Staying at the same hotel, the two later serendipitously
meet. Peter offers advice: What’s red for you may be blue for me. “You only say
it’s red because you’ve been told that’s what red is. For you blue is something
else again. But get enough people to say that’s blue, and it is blue”
(22).

Roger extends this kernel of insight to another man on the beach, the
same man who’s the competitor of Peter—Guilio Amato. Guilio interprets this to
mean that the names for things aren’t the things themselves; rather, the names
are ideas and the thing is the thing itself. Using this semantic device to his
advantage, Guilio enters the competition.

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The Custodians (1975, novelette) – 5/5 – (36 pages)

In a Persian valley rests the monastery Hautaire, a sanctuary once
visited by Meister Sternwärts in 1273
A.D. Having visited the mysteries of the East, Peter Sternwärts convalesces in the monastery and pursues
a personal interest in ocular focus of the ancient Apollonius. The
paradoxographical literature convinces Peter to locate the ocular focus within
the grounds of the temple and building the site himself. From the visions
within, Peter creates his work entitled Praemonitiones.

Much later in 1917 A.D., a doctoral student comes to the monastery
after being interested in the figure of Peter and his Biographia. Once
in the sanctuary, Brother Roderigo curates the ancient manuscripts to the young
Spindrift. When Brother Roderigo dies only days later, Spindrift is left with
the early works of 13th Century Peter Sternwärts, and within contains predicts setout by the scholar.

Another young student of life comes to the monastery in pursuit of
further knowledge regarding the ancient, enigmatic Peter Sternwärts. Now 1981 A.D., Spindrift has remained in
the sanctuary replacing the Brother Roderigo as the contemporary of Peter
Sternwärts from six hundred years ago.
Spindrifts own visions within the ocular focus have been hazy but, like his
predecessors for centuries before him, he has added his visions to the
prophetic tome of Illuminatum. Now a young man, J.S. Harland, has come
to explore the spiritual wealth of Peter Sternwärts,
but Spindrift’s vision calls for the coming of a young woman. During prayers,
the two are in attendance with the Abbot who announces a war breaking out in
the Middle East. This devastating news can
only be reaffirmed by contrasting Spindrift’s own foresight with J.S. Harland’s
foreboding within the ocular focus.

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Paradise Beach (1976, novelette) – 4/5 – (19
pages)

The sybaritic wife, Zeyphr, of a wealthy banker is drowned in her
exclusion from her husband’s recent art purchase: a ten-square meter anamorphic
landscape of a Caribbean beach where each
viewer of the piece projects their own stories onto the landscape. When her
husband moves the framed piece to his personal study, a series of odd
discoveries jostles her womanly intuition.

Zeyphr’s friend Margot consoles her, Zephyr proclaims to have made a
copy of the study key. The duo make their way up to the room where the
anamorphic landscape is placed in front of a darkened window. The image in
hauntingly realistic, but surely not realistic enough for her husband to
scatter sand through the study, or track seaweed into the shower, or sop
seawater onto his robe.

Margot is later contacted by the police regarding Zephyr’s 100-meter
suicide dive in a bikini from the study’s blackened window. Alcohol may have
had something to do with it.

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The Hertford Manuscript (1976, novelette) – 5/5 – (34 pages)

A curious manuscript bound in a 1665 book, but with paper produced two
centuries after this time, comes into the ownership of a man. His great-aunt
having bequeathed the book to him along with the story of having known both
H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley, continues with having known the original Dr.
Pensley, or The Time Machine fame. His curious real-life disappearance
enthralled both H.G. Wells and his great-aunt, as it confirmed their suspicions
of having truly traveled time.

The manuscript, a diary penned by none other than Dr. Pensley himself,
begins on an August day when the doctor becomes stranded in time due to two
cracked crystals. He soon finds that the year is 1665 and the bubonic plague
has smitten the city of London
during months prior to his unfortunate August arrival. Determined to return to
his proper era, Dr. Pensley braves the “evil miasma” (116) and sulphurous air
of London to
find a lens grinder so that he may craft the octagonal prisms. With the
services found and payment agreed upon, Dr. Pensley settles into the city for a
week until the prisms can be properly crafted.

Still suspecting the manuscript as a forge, the man turns to experts to
verify its physical authenticity, the author’s comparative penmanship, and the
relevant historical accuracies.

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The Web of the Magi (1980, novella) – 0/5 – (65 pages)

A man Her Majesty’s service during WWII is encamped in Persia where he
is detailing the geographic plans to lay cable. His two Persian guides are
hesitant to continue their journey into djinn territory, but the man scoffs at
their meek sense of adventure. On the next day, the man sees a natural cataract
through his telescope and sets off to crest the ridge while leaving the two
guides behind. One upon the ridge, he ascends to a plateau in which rests a
valley unseen to modern man.

Reveling in his discovery, the man descends to gather his guides, but
they seem to have left camp, leaving the man to once again scale the cataract
alone and to uncover its mystery by himself. Traversing the face of the
cataract with his mule and coming to the crest of the plateau, the man is greeted
by four faceless robed figures who lead him to the Petra-esque cave sanctuary
at the end of the plain of irrigated olive trees.

Therein, the man is treated to the womanly company of Amazonian
concubines and the piqued interest of Anahita, whose surreal aura casts the
man’s reality into uncertainty. The plateau’s valley being their home without
chance for leaving, the man is a true outsider among hermetic insiders.
Revelations of their reality slowly unfolds itself… and by slowly I mean I
skimmed that last 45 pages of the 63 page novella.

Horizontal frolicking with aliens... oh, that's a plot? (1/5)
From May 18, 2010

My original reason for seeking out and procuring this Busby trilogy (three novels: Cage a Man [1973], The Proud Enemy [1975], and End of the Line [1980]), like many of the purchases, had been forgotten. Trusting my earlier self for writing the name of the book down, I bought with a shrug and swore to my earlier self that this had better be good. And good it was not. If this is Busby's best, the chaff must be gag-worthy.

Rear cover synopsis:
"The Unstoppable Barton!

The Demu have laid plans to conquer the galaxy. And to transform all its inhabitants!

Barton has to stop them. But, threatening as the Demu are, Barton discovers an even more dread fact--the Demu are only the seed of an even more ominous alien master race.

In a universe peopled with single-minded aliens, star-traveling Tilari, Terran slaves, despotic space-fleet commanders--and Limila, a most unusual heroine--Barton never gives up. Against insuperable odds and formidable foes, he fights to the finish, flying to the far-reaching frontiers of space and back again, plumbing the secrets of alien races!"

------------

Busby has a good thing going (a great thing actually) when he wrote the
first 45 pages of this trilogy. A mini-synopsis would go something like: "After awaking, Barton finds himself imprisoned with strangers of human
and alien. Later, being in solitary confinement, Barton plays mind
games with the mysterious aliens who hold him captive." This alone was a
great story, albeit short. It had all the great nuances which evoke
concentration to the reading, absorption in the plot and a yearning for
the conclusion...

...THEN Barton introduces Earth into the plot, where
the politicians, scientists and military analysts are all plotting
around getting back at the Demu race, who have kidnapped humans and
tortured them in their experiments. Here is where the plot loses all
steam as page after page is full of planning, more planning and a
countdown until the plan is unleashed. All the while, Barton's sex toy
of an alien is getting plastic surgery so that they can commence their
horizontal frolicking.

When the Earth-made ships are off into
space and arrive at friendly alien planet, a party is thrown where
humans and aliens alike scamper off to bed each other. Once all the gear
is aboard, the ships set off, more eye-rolling frolicking continues and
finally the ships reach the Demu planet where their ultimate plan is
set aside for a better alternative- all with a terribly predictable
ending.

The remaining 37% of the book has nothing whatsoever to
do with the Demu (IMHO) and only adds more sex scenes for Barton, more sex
scenes for the other cast, more sex scenes for the plot in general and a
obvious conclusion to the end of the book... which, predictably, ends
with a Barton, again, in bed with his alien sexpot.

Reminiscent
of Busby's other novels that I've read reviews of, the author throws sex scenes around so casually it seriously distracts from the
plot, which had little to hold my attention anyway. Perhaps if I were a
12 year old boy, my attention would have been undivided but for a
non-stop science fiction reader like me, the plot is flat after page
150.

One other reviewer said it was a love story, too. If you
consider someone shallow like Barton who urges his sexpot to change
herself physically through surgery after surgery to make her look more
appealing and sexually functional... and you think that's love, then
yes, it's a love story. How romantic.

My 45 page love affair with Busby was shot down with the resulting 480 pages. How sweet romance the first 10% of the book was, then my eyes were raped with terrible prose, a cliché plot, and bountiful, peripheral sex scenes with aliens. Why, why, why was it so bad?

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

With a slight word of warning from Joachim on the juvenility of Vault
of the Ages, I forged ahead on my sixteenth Poul Anderson book knowing the
above objective truth with my own subjective truth: Poul Anderson has his hits (Tau
Zero [1970] and Three Worlds to Conquer [1964]) more often than he
has his misses (Day of Their Return [1974] and Orbit Unlimited
[1961]). Sadly, the familiar theme of The High Crusade, minus the
aliens, comes across as shallow entertainment with a flowery epimyth or a
conclusion. It’s not a dud, but doesn’t hearken to Poul’s own science fiction traditions
of wonderment and/or zany originality.

Rear cover synopsis:

“20th Century, Mystery Century!

Once upon a time (which hasn’t happened yet) the fierce Lann army
thundered down from the North to conquer the peace-loving Dalesmen. The ‘Doom’
had destroyed nearly all concepts of civilization 500 years earlier. Defying
charges of witchcraft, Carl of Dalesmen entered the forbidden city and the
vault which held secrets of the long-ago twentieth century.”

------------

With the winters being colder and longer than in recent memory, the
northern clan of Lann has dispatched an army to the south in order to find new
land to settle and cultivate, but not before killing and pillaging. Their
reputation as a ruthless clan has reached further inland has become known as
the fiercest, largest army. Lann’s King Raymon’s own son Lenard is the captain
of the thousand-man platoon; both the leaders and the led are driven by the
need to make a settlement further to south to ensure their clan’s survival. In
their way is peaceful town of Dalesmen.

Democratically governed by Chief Ralph, the village has survived
through the decades with the assistance of the town’s “Doctor,” Donn. As with
every village, the Doctor bears holy symbols, beats drums, and chants spells
against witchcraft (130). One law of the Dalesmen tribe, and many tribes like
them, is to not enter the City, where the scaffold remains of an ancient city
still stand amid the rubble of concrete, steel, and glass. Though inhabited by
a industrious yet cowardly band of so-called witches, the town is off-limits,
especially so for the Time Vault within the city proper.

Chief Ralph’s son Carl treks through the forest and happens upon a
country home where two boys, Tom and Owl, decide to tag along to enter the
city, their mission to find reinforcement against the Lann horde. Their horses
packed, they travel towards the City only to be chased by the Lann band, but
they find solace in the City where they are greeted by the City’s own Chief
Ronwy. Permission is eventually granted for them to enter the Time Vault, where
books and machines abound. To prove to his own clan that the City holds power
enough for them to defeat the Lann clan, Carl takes a hand-crank flashlight to
impress everyone.

Denounced by Doctor Donn, the trio are ever eager to prove themselves
potent in the eyes of the village and, most importantly, in the prying eyes of
the Lann. Though the magic white light emanating from the contraption may have
scared the army once, further technology must be attained so that they may
conquer the horde of heathens at their threshold. Captured by the Lann
eventually, the trio of Carl, Tom, and Owl defuse their situation craftily and
return once again to their village where another challenge is thrown at them:
the death penalty for trespassing on the ground of the City and overstepping
the boundary of the Time Vault and the demons which lurk within.

Yet another timely escape brandished by the young whippersnappers of
Dalesmen sees them charge back into the City once and for all to gain control
of the technology within the Time Vault, whether the City inhabitants or the
Lann can stop them.

------------

Joachim is right when he states the juvenility of this novel. The gallivanting
between their village, through the enemy’s encampment, to the derelict perches
of the City’s skyscrapers is repetitive. The Vault holds such wonder to the
trio of boys, but it also holds wonder in the reader. However, don’t expect to
be immersed in the ancient wonders of the Vault’s bounty because only a handful
of pages pertain to the Vault’s treasures.

You should familiarize yourself with some of the science lingo before
dipping your toes into this science fiction novel:

I wasn’t sympathetic with anyone in this novel, be they a person or a
tribe: the morally high-grounded post-apocalyptic tribe (before post-apocalyptic
was “cool”) of Dalesmen pitted against the advancing threat of an impoverished
clan from the Lann. Perhaps the Lann came at the encroachment the wrong way,
with force, rather than diplomatically, but I didn’t feel sorry for the
villages left in their wake or those who had yet to feel the brunt of the great
Lann warrior clan.

The greedy territorial advance of the Lann army is synonymous to the technological
lust of the Dalesmen youth. Where the Lann simply wanted land to live and
thrive on, the Dalesmen youth look to the non-solution of technology to solve
their problem of invasion. In the Time Vault itself, there were more than mere
inventions of gunpowder and electricity, but there must have also been the
inventions of the mind, something which they felt they could easily bypass. This
reliance on knowing of technology rather than the knowledge of
technology casts a dim view on the young bandits, be it for the greater
cause or less. Even when they discuss to share the treasures within, they
mention the material good rather than the good of knowledge.

Even Doctor Donn says, “There is no evil in the vault. There is only
evil in the hearts of men. Knowledge, all knowledge, is good” (187). If this
were true in the context of the story, then why would the Dalesmen tribe offer
to share the Vault’s technology with competing clans when the exchange of
ethics, morality, or religion could better change the “hearts of men” than a
schooner could? Presuming the Vault is full of not only the world’s most
important technologies, but also full of the virtues of the world’s most gifted
thinkers, I would think the first thing to share would be the goodness of
words, not the goodness of the material wealth.

This will be one of the few Anderson
novels that will be taken back to the second-hand bookstore. It’s a pity that
even the cover isn’t noteworthy. I’ll remind myself in the future to steer
clear of Poul Anderson’s historically themed novels if they don’t include
absurdity like The High Crusade. Now I’m only left with Psycho-technic
League (1981) on my shelves… an ominous sign that I either need for
Anderson, or none at all. Considering his wealth of material, there must be tastier
morsels out there.

I first started to read The High Crusade (book #63 of 83 that year) in
October 2008 but I accidentally left the book on the train into Chicago
and it stands that it's the only book I ever lost. But the novel left
such a unique impression on my mind that I decided to track down another
copy and finish it... without losing it, again.

Rear cover synopsis:
"In the year 1345 A.D. (by Earth reckoning)... the might Wersgorix, undisputed rulers of outer space, landed on Earth in their conquest for new worlds to conquer. Their ship guided missiles and thermonuclear devices, but they had long since forgotten how to use the weapons necessary for hand-to-hand fighting.

So they were easy prey for a band of knights armed with battleaxes and broadswords. But it was a victory won by surprise, and only temporary. The invaders were thousands of years ahead of Earth in technical knowledge--and knew countless ways of blowing up the whole planet."

This being my
twelfth Anderson novel, I have a pretty good feel for his writing style, which sometimes strays from romantic into the realm of Poul's idiosyncratic prosaic prose.
The general prose and vocab is similar to his other works of Mirkheim (1977),
Horn of Time (1968) or Planet of No Return (1956). It's not quite gripping, but when
Anderson introduces, rather abruptly, the item of the medieval humans
overtaking the star-faring aliens and their colonial planets does one's
interest become piqued. I've never read a silly Anderson novel before,
but how the humans find themselves in situations are lip-bittingly bizarre, how the humans culturally chest thump is patently absurd, and how
they defeat advanced aliens with broadswords, cavalry, and simple
medieval military tactics is smirkingly ridiculous... but, most importantly, fun.

Amongst the silliness, Anderson throws
in some paragraphs and sentences which read more like poetry than pulp
sci-fi. One example: "...she... stood there denouncing him in the enemy
night. The larger moon... touched them like cold fire." Then there is
Anderson at his best when he stirs up some formal English: "His
declensions are atrocious and what he does to irregular verbs may not be
described in gentle company." I won't probe into what exactly Poul means, but I'm sure it's both cheeky and true.

From the gems I further uncovered
after only reading the first half the novel in Chicago, I'm delighted to have
finally finished the novel from cover to cover. The only other silly
novel of Anderson's I can recall is Brain Wave (1954), but High Crusade is on a
whole new plateau on par with the likes of Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles(1968). Not exactly a
perfect novel, but a great 160 page romp.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

I gather from online sources
that John Morressy hasn’t been a very widely read author, perhaps best known
for two fantasy sequences in the 1980’s and his novel Starbrat (1972) has a small cult following it seems, but I didn’t care much for it. I guess if one theme could be pulled from
Morressy’s bibliography, it would be the recurrence of revolt over dictatorship
by a lone, determined man. It may be the miasma of machismo which is too
overbearing to take these novels seriously (keeping in mind, I’ve only read Starbrat
and Extraterritorial), but even the characterization of both
protagonists seems to be similar.

Rear cover synopsis:

“Everyone knows the
extraterritorials protect the Association’s interests outside the Barrier; no
one really understands how. Even Martin Selkirk, an extraterritorial himself,
has only a hazy idea of his work. And that is how the Association likes it. But
when Selkirk begins to dream—ugly, terrifying images that grow increasingly
vivid—he realizes they are not dreams, but memories of hideous atrocities he
has committed for the Association. And Selkirk plans his revenge.”

------------

After twelve years of being
outside the resplendent confines of the Association’s city comforts, Martin
Selkirk visits the city between missions in order to visit his brother Jack and
his wife Noreen. Everyone he meets lauds the efficiency and security that the
Association has given the northeast corner of the once United States,
but Martin sees the perfect order and ignorance of life beyond as a sign of
governmental gangrene. Those belonging to the Association don’t take kindly to
his way of thinking.

The citizens of the Association
comply with its demands for the simple sake of comfort; they prefer “a
comfortable lie over a painful truth” (143). Having been in charge twenty-one
years since the America’s
democratic end in 1991, life inside the Association in 2012 is greatly
controlled: communication, old documents, books, papers, films; “everything we
learn, everything we read, everything we hear, everything we see” (142). The
complacent, comforted masses in Section One contrast the poverty and repression
faced by the non-Association members in Section Three.

Martin brother Jack is simply
an apolitical lawyer, loyal to the Association but also loving towards his wife
and brother. After dinner with the two once night, he disappears after a visit
to his office. Surmising that he’s working on a secret project, Noreen tries to
continue her housewife life, waiting for word from Jack… she instead receives news
from the Association: Jack had been killed by terrorists, the ring on his
finger and the fingerprints lifted confirming the devastating news. In reality,
Jack has been shipped to a concentration camp under the false conviction of
breaching security. The Association knowingly wants Jack for his close genetic
similarity to his renegade brother in order to understand why Martin’s mind has
rejected the Bruckner Process of mind wiping.

Martin’s memory of his job as
an Extraterritorial is unclear to him. He thinks he remembers being a mining
expert, but after his mission is complete his memories are erased. His
flashbacks of a burning jungle remind him that the Bruckner Process is safe,
but at the same time the memories haunt him. When Martin visits Central Registry
for his reassignment, the bureaucracy frustrates him for an entire day. The
next day, when no one reaches him for more information about his reassignment,
Martin goes again to Central Registry to confront the same staff member. He
walks to the same office, but his prior visit was unregistered and any contact
he made was impossible. When guards some to escort him away, he manhandles them
and resigns to the fact that he must escape to Section Three.

After a month of despair and
isolation, the Association storm Section Three to capture Martin. Rapping at
the door reveals a familiar face from Central Registry, but his capturer turns
out his rescuer, part of the Counterforce, a latent band of resistance
established in the underground tunnels branching beneath the city. When the
Bruckner Process is reversed, Martin realizes his ability to transform this
lethargic sect of revolt into a lancing schism of rampage.

With “no army, no navy, no
armed forces, no police” (152), the Association is left vulnerable to a
well-organized revolution from outside its own walls. With the Barrier
separating the former northeast US from the Outlands, there is little threat
from the savages of the outside, western American nomads who’ve crossed the
burnt, devastated western prairies because of the earthquakes which sunk their
homeland and destroyed their cities. Are the Outlands the real threat to the
peaceful existence of the Association or is the closer threat of the
Counterforce more menacing? Martin is the strategist.

------------

Martin’s motivation for
resistance is understandable but closely parallels the strife faced by the
protagonist in Morressy’s other novel Starbrat: the painful loss of
family and lies about his existence. However, his recruitment to Counterforce
is too convenient and the situation Martin found himself in when inquiring at
Center Registry was too much of a tall tale. Considering that the Registry was
the most closely watched area of the Association, the Counterforce’s high-level
infiltration seems unlikely. Once ensconced, his near-maniacal bloodlust for
revenge is too far-fetched. As Martin really doesn’t understand the history of
the Association or the underpinnings of its existence, his desire for its
destruction seem superficial; the demand for its demise too machismo.

The utopian Association world
created by Morressy isn’t all too inventive. The situation America found
themselves during the 1980’s gave rise to a benevolent group (far from a
regime, dictatorship, or authority in their own regard) where “all belong to
something and help one another” (37). However, the sheer size of the
Association’s bureaucracy renders it malevolent by extent; the manpower it
controls and the leverage it wields are too massive for a benevolent centralized
government. Its offices are the façade of its strength but the ones in control
remain hidden from public knowledge, not even the Counterforce knowing who’s
truly in command. After twenty-one years of lenient intracity control, the first
true resistance from the intercity weakens its grip on the city and its
infrastructure.

At the same time, the utopian
corner northeastern American, the Association, is an interesting mind
experiment on how people inside and outside a supposedly benevolent society
react to injustices beyond its walls. The propaganda machine is only propaganda
to those who are being unjustly treated; the consumers of the propaganda are
blissful of their ignorance. The citizens of the Association are kept from
traveling outside their limited territory, thereby exasperating their condition
of ignorance of the outside world. One outsider, Martin, a non-citizen but also
not an Outlander, can plainly see past the lies and non-truths. One of his
hosts, his brother, is sympathetic to his distrust of the Association, but his
brother’s wife isn’t as open-minded to Martin’s intrinsic dissent.

Destroying much of the plot’s
continuity, the necessary deaths of some characters come about erratically. These
pivotal points weren’t planned out very well and their importance didn’t
accelerate the pace of the plot or add dimension. The deaths simply take place
to instill a sense of revolt in Martin, a ferociousness which was already encapsulated
when learning of his true nature as an Extraterritorial.

One interesting aspect of the
Association is its calendar reform. Instead of dividing the year between twelve
unequal months with illogical names such as October (eighth month) and December
(tenth month), the Association divided the year into four Quarters, each Quarter
thirteen weeks long, starting on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday. Midyear
between second and third Quarters, a non-calendar holiday called Association
Day would occur. Additionally, every fourth year at the end of the fourth
Quarter would be another non-calendar holiday named Progress Day, in lieu of the
traditional leap day. Much to the tradition of the Association, “Everyone liked
the new calendar. It solved all the old problems in a simple, orderly manner”
(41). In place of February 10 would be “First Quarter 31” or instead of March
28, “First Quarter 87” would be used. Occasionally erring, the authors refers
to some eras of time experienced by the characters as “months,” which ruins the
congruity with the author’s created universe.

------------

I finished this book in one day--easy read. During the five hours I spent reading it cover-to-cover, there were some high points:
mainly Morressy’s creation of the Association, albeit heavy on the theory but light on
the practice. Then there are the low points: the predictable doors which must
be passed through for Martin to attain the proper level of revolt. Both the
highs and the lows are very scripted. Include eight pages of carefully placed meta-documentation
and you have yourself a well-organized but blocky structure. Considering that
Morressy’s Starbrat also rated 3-of-5 stars, I don’t hold much hope for
other Morressy novels.

Fingering the bureaucracy of alien invasion (3/5)From February 28, 2011

After my eighth van Vogt novel to-date, I do consider myself a fan merely
because of his wide range of pulp novels, which spur on my readership
through the years of reading. His novels may be short (The Battle of
Forever being only 173 pages long), his stories are always centered
around an interesting theme which he tends to explore in unique ways. My
favorite, of course, is Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) but Battle of
Forever shares nothing in likeness to Voyage. Rather, it has more in
common with Man With a Thousand Names (1974); likenesses that include the
shifting of mindsets from the viewpoint of a single narrator... the
narrator unknowingly changing realities.

Rear cover synopsis:
"For thousands of years--evolving a miniature physiology for a life of peace and philosophical contemplation. Modyun agrees grow his body large and to return beyond the barrier, where animal-men roam the world. His quest will lead him deeper into darkness and deeper into the uncertain..."

------------

Battle of Forever is
simply a miserable title--easy to forget and reflects very little from
the story. It has to be one of the worst titles for a sci-fi novel right behind Philip K. Dick's Zap Gun E.E. Smith's The Skylark of Space (neither of which I remotely
enjoyed).

Modyun is a modified human living in the Ylem where
all 1,000 humans live a multi-millennial philosophical existence. When
the question of what is happening to the sentient man-animals the humans
left behind, Modyun is set out to inhabit a human body and discover
what has become of the world they departed so long ago. As four
beast-men befriend the naïve Modyun, passing himself as an ape as there
are no longer any humans to be found in the flesh, he experiences a
shift in the laws the humans had left the animal-men to follow... which
is where the story begins.

Finding that the hyena-men have taken
the role of an unnecessary government, Modyun later finds the pusher of
the move- the Nunuli race who conquered earth before humans hermetically
secluded themselves. Behind this alien race is yet another race with a
hidden agenda and so forth and so on. Modyun finds himself aboard a
spaceship, the same ship employing his four friends, where they are off
on a predestined route to search for new worlds to conquer.

The
story begins to lose a lot of steam when the ship finally reaches a
planet. I liked the story of dealing with alien bureaucracy but having
to shift between true reality and perceived reality (if those are the
right words to be chosen) is a tedious business which should be left to a
much thicker novel (like Banks' Transition [2009]). In the last ten percent,
especially, the reader must be vigilant about the mindsets of the entire
cast, who can play who and which means to an end need to be met, etc.
It might just scramble your brain or urge you to chuck it in the bin. I stuck
it out and kind of shrugged, uncommitted to either liking or disliking the entire rigmarole.

So, like Man of a Thousand Names
this novel is a bit heady with bodily disconnectedness but with even more ideas crammed into its future
history. I liked the future history of the novel, it is quite unique but
I just wish the plot wouldn't had been so spastic and far-flung. A nice
terrestrial sci-fi story never hurt anyone. A must for any van Vogt fan
but a polite pass for the non-so keen reader. I'm not even sure if it warrants a re-read, but I need more van Vogt in the collection before I can draw more comparisons to his earlier and later works.

Monday, August 27, 2012

You’d figure… after reading
twenty books of a single author, you may become bored with the author’s prose,
ideas, or reoccurring themes. Every time I pick up another Brunner novel, I
open the pages expecting it fall between one or another of his novels—one with
parallelism or atmosphere. Even his bad books (The Wrong End of Time [1971]
and Give Warning to the World [1974]) maintain an intrinsic originality,
yet flawed in its pulp delivery or flat plot pulse. This here is my
twenty-first Brunner, a novel which I knew not to be the hardest of his science
fiction nor one of his more renowned novels. The fact that’s it not
well-known urges me on—I read it in one day. To say I relished it would be a
stretch, but to say I found it intriguing would hit the nail on the head.

Rear cover synopsis:

“Masses of meaningless wire.

Seeing-eye TV sets.

Hidden tape recorders spinning
subliminal suggestions.

With each discovery, Murray
Douglas’ alarm grows. But it doesn’t seem to affect the others.

It’s just Delgado’s way, they
say. He’s an oddball genius who has concocted his own method of writing and
directing a play. All we want is an opportunity to act for him.

But Murray Douglas wants to
know why Manuel Delgado has searches the stages of the world for these
particular actors. Why has he isolated them in an unused country club and
played to their weaknesses? Why are they being proctored by the odd, silent
servants? Who is Manuel Delgado and what’s his game?

Little do the actors realize
that the play is not the thing. That it is barely a cover for one of the most
astonishing and surreal events ever to unfold. That they are puppets of a
master intellect… pawns in the productions of time.”

------------

Murray Douglas has spent some
time in the sanatorium while
recovering from alcoholism. Once a well-known actor, the now has-been is trying
to recoup his losses by signing onto a play with a playwright of recent infamy.
The playwright, Manuel Delgado, staged a play where the one actress admitted
herself to a psychiatric ward, one actor committed suicide, and another woman
ate her baby. Had the production been doomed from the start or had the
dastardly result been Delgado’s intended goal?

When Murray arrives at the remote English estate,
he is escorted to his room where he discovers a wet bar. Angered by the
ignorance of his hosts, he demands the liquor to withdrawn from his room but
later finds an half-empty bottle of whiskey in his medicine cabinet and a open
bottle of Scotch in his suitcase, a bottle he didn’t pack. Smashing the bottles
in the tiled bathroom, Murray
confronts the director of the play, Mr. Blizzard. Blizzard pleads ignorance in
the matter, so Murray
turns to the other actors housed in the estate. They know him for his alcohol
problems and the scent of booze emanating from his room confirm their
suspicions.

Murray’s dislike for Delgado and Blizzard is heightened when he then
discovers metallic gossamer woven into this mattress which is attached to a
reel-to-reel machine in the bed’s frame. Without a speaker, the set-up isn’t
meant for nocturnal lullabies and the lack of a microphone discredits the rig
as an audio recording device. When Murray
confronts the playwright and the director, they, again, seem to feign ignorance
and blame the matter on the estate’s history as a country club. Unperturbed, Murray tells others of
his finding, some of who are alarmed at the invasion of privacy.

Murray is trusted by two other
members of the thespian troupe: a man with a heroine fix who finds copious
amounts of “horse” in his room but trusts Murray to dose it out to him,
otherwise he may double-dose himself to death; the other is a pretty girl
without vice or reputation. This girl’s normalcy contrasts the rest of the
thespians who have reputations of lesbianism, pornography, or pedophilia. Add
to this his alcoholism recovery and his friend’s addiction; the result is a
decadent mix of vices which no one could possibly want to organize together to
perform a play of any sort. What ideas had Delgado formed to compose the group
as such?

Murray’s infernal meddling in the estates electronics angers Delgado and the
estate’s butler, Valentine. The odd console has continuous power even when the
set it turned off; the power cord isn’t plugged into the wall but runs into the
adjoining room. When Murray
tugs the cord, a crash occurs and Valentine runs to the other room to attend to
the resulting crash. Again, Murray
is scolded but he continues his effort to persuade the other’s of the odd
happenings in the estate. He’s committed to production because of his need to
return to acting, but when circumstances become unbearable, Murray reflectively threatens his immediate
departure but his curiosity gets the best of him. When he overhears, “That wasn’t
the experience contracted for!” (106), Murray
organizes a quick set-up of his own to wring the truth from the conspirators.

------------

The commonplace, non-SF setting
with an actor as the protagonists was a tad unsettling. I wasn’t sure what to
expect as I tend to ignore reading synopses before reading the book, but I
maintain faith in Brunner (rarely has he failed me, but I once damned him for
writing the novella “No Other Gods But Me” [1966] in his Entry toElsewhen [1975] collection). Thanks
be to Brunner that he had talent enough to carry the reader through some good
amount of deception, chicanery, and good old-fashioned lying to rile up the
protagonist. Murray’s inquisitive nature spoils
the fun of the conspirators, though he has little idea who exactly they are or
what exactly they are up to; Murray
just knows that he doesn’t appreciate being played with and lied to. This
amounts to a good amount of frustration resulting in petty destruction,
something which the reader can empathize with.

The cast are scripted to be
have “been brought to ruin and disrepute by abnormal behavior” (1) but I found
them all to be interesting and was rooting for their latent revolt against
those conspiring and lying, whoever they turned out to be. They may be
“down-and-out actors” (1) with some inhibition to resist revolt because they
also need the acting job, but the reader actually puts a measurable amount of
faith in Murray
to continue his antics and get to the root of the meddling mystery. It’s fun…
something which is hard to say of other Brunner books which typically waver between
intellectually satisfying and curiosity stroking.

The inclination to the climax
is steady, with the climax itself being very abrupt and fruitful. It snapped
like a taught elastic band and stung like a being smarted by the same elastic band.
The conclusion to the mystery is a bit grandiose and far-fetched, but don’t
read any more of the page one synopsis (in the Signet edition) if you don’t
want any inkling as to what that conclusion rests upon. Maybe since I read all
139 pages in one day, I found the conclusion suiting, even with its ‘deus ex
machina’ quality (a lá The Wrong End of
Time).

The Productions of Time may not be Brunner’s most challenging book
or more intellectually satisfying book yet, but it’s one of his most fun reads.
Be open to Murray
as you are to the unique cast, and you may be open enough for the ‘deus ex
machina’ conclusion. Simple and charming… I’m wondering if Timescoop
(1969) holds a similar appeal.

My tenth Brunner... good going and getting stronger with little end in sight when considering his vast bibliography. It's a joy to delve into Brunner's mind, a mind which has created ten (the current count) versions of bizarre universes, strange humans and their circumstances, intelligent reflections of the future, and discerning visions of reality. While Catch a Falling Star may not really encompass any of those Brunner feats, it still has a Brunner-esque quality that this reader adores.
Rear cover half-synopsis:

"A hundred thousand years from now, it was
discovered that a star was approaching the world on a collision course.
Its discoverer, Creohan, figured there might be time to save the world
if he could arouse everyone to the danger."

------------

Creohan, who is
housed in a mildly intelligent organic house hosting a telescope
belonging to its prior occupant, spots bright star which becomes
brighter and brighter with time. Consulting the Historickers, Creohan
find that's that the approaching star has been approaching for millennia
and will pass by earth in 288 years. With this knowledge he tells the
townspeople who then dismiss his mourning as banal. Upon finding the
free-spirited Chalyth, the couple begin a journey across the earth to
search for other cities who they have lost contact with, to search for a
technological civilization who have the power to catch a star, to save
humanity, to allow humans to endure on their planet.

The quest
that Creohan and Chalyth take themselves on spans wildly different
landscapes, a wide scope of evolved or mutated humans, and a glimpse of
fallen civilizations. The House of History or Tree of History is used to
study the history of the planet's rise and fall of civilizations, each
acquiring their own technology, their own ethos and their own
catastrophe. Through the study of the past, the historians
(histroickers) they hope the current civilization will live full and
well, though each minor city is far and few between, the land and sea
teeming with barbarians and heathens. The quest is epic for the pair and
those who ally themselves with the bearers of bad news.

However,
as the novel is only 158 pages, the epic quest is quite condensed and
each chapter of six or so pages is a splash of action, a peppering of
forging ahead, a swath of diversity. When progressing through 28
chapters of this, it's rather tiring and I would have liked to have many
of the sections beefed up, each one adding some delicious value to the
overall plot. As it is, each ort of a chapter barely sates ones
speculative fiction pallet. A quest is a quest, so the inevitable
divergences from a smooth plot is an expectation... but it would have
been so much better to have seen this novel filled out to 400 pages or
even a multi-book series akin to Jack L. Chalker's four-book series The
Rings of The Master (1986-1988), which I was strongly reminded of while reading
Catch a Falling Star. It's also a little bit like Brunner's own Maze of
Stars (1991).

Being a Brunner novel, it carries his knack forportraying bizarre
forms of humanity through evolution, mutation or manipulation... but it's
not his finest piece, of course. As an astute SF reader it's a certain
addition to my Brunner shelf, but perhaps for the more fair-weather
reader this might as well just be a pass.

Monday, August 20, 2012

There are those who enjoy a
lengthy novel sopped in plot building and emotional candor--I am among them. I mentally swam in Doomsday
Book (1992) and lounged along side of To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998). Willis
has a knack for bring out emotion in the pages and also lightly layering humor
along side it all. She’s had me smiling, laughing, and concentrated all in a
small number of pages. The woman can write, as is obvious from the number of nominations
and awards given to both of the books above. The exact some emotional and
emotional nuances found in these two novels are also found throughout this
short story collection (which actually won an award for “best collection”). Most
of the stories are great, but a few find the author indulging in some whim or
another. Many of the stories themselves are award winner, too!

------------

The Last of the Winnebagos
(1988, novella) – 5/5 – David McCombe is a photojournalist reporting on the
last Winnebago RV, a dying breed on the American highways which have
increasingly outlawed such behemoths. The elderly owners strike up conversation
about dogs, reminding David of his last dog Aberfan and the circumstances of
its death. David then becomes involved in the “Society’s” investigation into a
dead jackal on the highway, a crime which caries a heavy penalty in a world
devoid of canines. 63 pages ----- An interesting vision of the future, where
dogs have all died and the roads are dominated by semis hauling water to
parched landscapes. An extrinsically interesting story morphs into an
unsettling intrinsic depth of empathy and forgiveness. A great start to the
collection and the most emotional story in the mix.

Even the Queen (1992,
shortstory) – 5/5 – The Liberation social movement has freed women of their
monthly burden with the help of the drug ammenerol. Traci’s mother calls her
with concern that her granddaughter Perdita has become one of the Cyclists, a
group of women who accept their menarche and the subsequent cycles. A lunch
meeting is made in order to dissuade Perdita from the pains of the Cyclists,
but the meeting simply becomes a mix of innocent curiosity, male domination
conspiracy, and menstrual reminiscing. 22 pages ----- The humor here is welcome
after the soppy previous story. The two generations of women conversing about
their experiences with menstruation with the new generation gasping in disgust
and forwards awkward questions is added fun.

Schwarzschild Radius (1987,
shortstory) – 4/5 – Travers visits a retired university biology teacher and WWI
veteran because he has personal knowledge of Karl Schwarzschild (of a black
hole’s Schwarzschild’s Radius fame) whom with he served with in the trenches.
As the radio operator and medical practitioner, the veteran had access to the
disillusioned physicist near the time of his death, but also at the time of his
correspondence with Einstein. The Doppler effect of a shrinking black hole
projects itself on the memory of the events. 23 pages ----- Like much of the
collection, the present time is blurred with memories. The two interweave and
the result is hard to unravel, but the war story and the physics story here are
more easily unthreaded. Not as emotional as “Winnebagos,” but equally as
unsettling.

Ado (1988, shortstory) – 5/5 – Before
teaching Shakespeare in the high school English class, the teacher must first
go through each of Shakespeare’s works line-by-line in order not to offend any
of the hundreds of organization who find one line or another offensive to their
race, sex, trade, clan, profession, etc. One student even protests the works as
the work of the devil, so when the student’s get their Hamlet, its reduced to a
paltry few lines. With political correctness… nobody wins. 10 pages -----
Viewing political correctness gone horribly wrong, Willis paints a realistic nightmare
of competing interests, petty squabbles, and dense red tape. Love this story!

Spice Pogrom (1986, novella) –
3/5 – In the Japanese orbital named Sony reside humans and their alien guests,
the Eahrohhs. The Japanese translation team has difficulty between the alien
tongue, English and their won. One alien, a compulsive shopper and hoarder
named Mr. Ohghhifoehnnahigrheeh, is moved by NASA into an already crowded
apartment, where even the stairway has residents sleeping. The translation
difficulty, wanton sub-letting, compulsive shopping, and alien antics drive the
leaser a tad mad. 97 pages ----- Slapstick comedy on the pages with long,
derisive dialogue and a jumbled cast, this story is the hardest to follow. What’s
supposed to be a comedy and love story just turns into a random jumble of
people and items, but what I gathered in between, some passages were great.

Winter’s Tale (1987, novelette)
– 2/5 – A two decade absence renders vague the memories of the wife and
children of a returning man. Accepting the form of the man but partly hesitant
of the actions of him and his men, the family rejoin but are yet rejoicing. At
a later time upon his deathbed, the same man, imposter to the position of
husband and father in the family, outlines the inheritance to the members of
the same family that has adopted his person and prose. 28 pages ----- Something
about Shakespeare. I’ll leave it at that.

Chance (1986, novelette) – 4/5
– Elizabeth’s husband’s recent job as associate dean at her old university
correlates with a Tupperware party at a neighbor’s house brings back to many
memories of her life and love in college that she finds herself hallucinating.
At the university applying for a job, Elizabeth
sees versions of her old self, her old roommate, and the love she lost. Through
the alumni organization, she learns that her love interest from yesteryear is
now dead from suicide, she wonders what she could have done differently. 38
pages ----- As in “Schwarzschild,” the blurred division between memory and reality
is difficult to establish. With some silly nuances amid the emotional toll Elizabeth experiences,
the contrast is weird. By now, the university theme is making an appearance.

In the Late Cretaceous (1991,
shortstory) – 4/5 – The Paleontology department of a university comes under the
eye of the dean’s visitor, Dr. King, a educational consultant with a rather
unique vocabulary with words like “impactization,” “innovatizing,” and
“ideating.” King aims to “do some observational datatizing” to assess the
modern relevance of the program. The Paleontology professors are at a loss of
words and draw parallelisms with the extinction of the dinosaurs and the
evolution of mammals. 17 pages ----- A cheeky story chronicling the eminent
demise of the department by the hand of a jargon-spewing consultant… I’m sure
we all know the type and can sympathize with the dread the department must
feel.

Time Out (1989, novella) – 4/5
– A quantum time travel experiment is scheduled at a grade school where the
test subjects are students. The blind participants are those who are working
with the eccentric Dr. Young. When chicken pox breaks out in the school,
circumstances escalate and the present time becomes as confusing and opaque as
the past. When lost love and reminiscing veils visions of the future, the
doctor’s test results hinge upon the mysterious grey box with a simple on-off
switch. 59 pages ----- Again, the blurred line between memories and reality,
but this time even the past-present becomes blurred. Not as blurry as “Schwarzschild”
but the resulting mixture is a wreck to unravel, but in the end the threads are
pulled taught.

Jack (1991, novella) – 5/5 – Amidst
the rubble and fire of Chelsea
are the volunteer wardens who sight the location and find the survivors of the
WWII bombing. One new volunteer has an uncanny ability to seek out bodies
buried beneath the rubble. Without a shout of despair or rapping of
desperation, Jack quickly becomes known for his peculiar talent, but another
volunteer, also named Jack , is more intrigued with the man’s elusive nature
when dawn rises—Jack discovers a man with no documentation. 61 pages ----- The
best story in the collection! The eerie setting of blacked-out London during bombing raids and planes and
bombs buzzing overhead compound the rising fear of the mysterious man named
Jack. Is he a spy, a murderer, or something else entirely? Real gripping stuff
here!

At the Rialto
(1989, novelette) – 2/5 – At a hotel in Hollywood,
a convention for the International Congress of Quantum Physicists is being
held. Between the ditzy receptionists and implacable seminars, the bizarre
effects and behaviors of the quantum world manifests itself in the seemingly
chaotic relationships, conversations, and choices made among the physicists.
With Benji, Bing Crosby, Charlton Heston, Donald Duck, and Red Skeleton all
being mentioned… expect chaos and only chaos. 28 pages ----- Something about Hollywood. I’ll leave it
at that.

Utter crap. Flying to Valhalla has zero redeeming qualities, a feat
rarely achieved in my foray of seriously reading science fiction for 3+
years. Besides being pointlessly detailed, repetitive to the point of
nausea, scatterbrained and curiously random, the novel paints Pellegrino
as a one-trick pony. His idiosyncratic interests should remain personal rather than being flung limply into the story. It's so disconnected and blatantly indulgent... I have no idea how this piece of crap ever got published. And you know, there's nothing repugnant or revolting about the book... it's just a moist turd written by a egocentric hack.

The characters of Chris and Clarice Wayville are
perhaps the lamest duo ever to set foot in a science fiction novel (right up there with lame old Louis Wu from Ringworld) as
they have no defining features, little or no background, and nothing at all which defines them as unique. They are just plopped down into a book which Pellegrino
has written just to showcase his crackpot theories and historical
curiosities. Just because he has written a book about the Titanic
doesn't mean he has to pointlessly connect it with this novel (at more
than one point)... and even though he has written a book about Hiroshima
doesn't mean he has to stretch the chapter's banality to include this
bit of information, too. It just all reeks of an egotistical intellect. It's painful to read.

It's
just so,so, so bad--I can't stop shaking my head. There's even a 14-page
sequence in which Asimov, Clarke, Sagan and Drake are all attending a meeting to
discuss the first detailed design of an anti-matter rocket created by
two scientists named Powell and Tuna... in reality, it was Powell and Pellegrino who were
the ones who provided the first detailed designs of such. Cheeky, isn't
it? Substitute Tuna for Pellegrino. When the lame team of Chris and Clarice land on the distant planet of Alpha Centauri (A-4) they name the first
continent Tunaland (read: Pellegrinoland). Author patting himself on the back?

It gets worse. Honestly. The
governments on earth are so concerned that the crew of the anti-matter
ship will turn around and ram earth at relativistic speeds like a
relativistic bomb. They dwell and dwell and dwell and dwell upon the somehow purposed
1% likelihood of this happening. I thought the book was supposed to be about first contact... but Pellegrino, again, follows his whim like a child chasing butterflies. On top of that banal thread the character Chris, too, is obsessed
about the relativistic bombardment of earth from A-4 as well as the
bombardment of A-4 from earth. I have no idea why it's made a
repetitive point other than it's simply just another one of Pellegrino
obsessions. It's not only Chris and the earth governments who have a
psychosis... it's also Pellegrino who has mental diarrhea and has the honor of
producing one of the worst science fiction novels I've ever read.

Additional negative points which I can't leave hanging like a wet tissue:1)
The timeline of the plot utterly unfathomable.
2) I bet Pellegrino wet himself in
his indulgence of writing 39 pages of Afterword and Acknowledgements.
3)
I bet Pellegrino had fun drawing all the nerdish little illustrations.
4) I've never ever seen an author write a full, to-the-margins one-page "About the
Author" autobiography before. This just confirms my inkling that Pellegrino
has a serious self-inflated ego.

Friday, August 10, 2012

VOR was written, as a novel, during the same years as Blish's much more
famous Cities in Flightseries (1955-1962). Oddly enough, VOR
doesn't carry the same characteristics as Cities in Flight does: the lengthy
sentences, abundant commas and semicolons, and the dry dialogue. VOR is a
drastic departure from the starchy, iron-pressed pockets of Cities (don't
forget your slide-rule!); VOR is a grittier, more down-to-earth romp through
first alien contact. I wish, wish, wish I could compare this first contact
novel to Blish's other first contact novel, A Case of
Conscience (1958), but I, sadly, haven't been able to procure a copy yet.

Rear cover synopsis:

"The first 'alien' from outer space arrives on earth:

How 'it' comes and what 'it' wants.

How we greet 'it,' nourish 'it,' communicate with 'it.'

What we learn from 'it' of interstellar worlds, galactic powers, and
void beyond.

And how--in the terrifying moment of Earth's ultimate crisis--we defend
the complex civilization of tomorrow from 'it!'

This could happen tomorrow, or the next day--but the awesome moment is
certainly within the realm of possibility--and may be close at hand!"

------------

Marty Petrucelli has led a complicated life. He's been a WWII fighter
pilot, a US
senator, and married to a lithe pin-up girl. He's largely given up the
glamorous life to volunteer in the Civil Air Patrol of Merger County, Michigan.
His simply duty in the squadron is to identify aircraft, a hobby or Marty's
since he was a young boy. However, some other volunteers in the squadron are
frustrated with Marty's new-found fear for flying. He may be the most
experienced flyer among them, but the flying to left to the other flyboys.

Compounding this fear of flying is Marty's inability to "maintain"
his wife, a pulchritudinous woman who draws the eyes of men like vultures to a
carcass. The other volunteers are aware of this discomfort and one man, the
head-headed pilot Al Strickland, is even openly friendly with his missus. The
defeated Marty keeps to his job. When a forest fire breaks, the crew are issued
orders to fly over the area and spot the cause of the outbreak. With
photographs taken, Marty examines the proofs and identifies the mirrored craft
at the center of the fire to be an atomic missile. Only later, when the air
force come to examine the radioactive craft, is the tubular craft assumed to be
a alien spacecraft.

With radiation spilling forth and heat in excess of 2,000 degrees
Celsius, the cooling craft opens to reveal a 15-foot black-sheathed monstrosity
standing silent, standing tall, and not communicating in any way. A crane is
hoisted to mobilize the metallic hunk, but when the crane tips and the alien
uprights it, the black-clad behemoth follows the crane. With radiation still
being emitted through the entire spectrum, the only likely place to contain the
walking star is the disused fusion plant in Grand Rapids. Once behind the massive lead-impregnated
concrete walls, scientific examination of the alien can begin.

Marty is chosen for the elite team because of his knowledge of the
event since its onset. The politicking among the military and the advisors
drives some of the team from inclusive plans on how to deal with the enigmatic
alien. Eventually, the shifting colors on its skin reveals the pattern violent-orange-red,
which reveals the aliens name: VOR. Patching a computer to the color analyzer, the
linguists are able to build a vocabulary with the alien. Very limited to
physical representations, the linguists find it difficult to express abstract
ideas and gain meaningful answers from the ebony-clad alien, whose interior
temperature climbs up to 6 million degrees Fahrenheit.

The linguists eventually asks the question, "What do you want?"
The alien ambles towards the viewing platform, frightening the scientists, and
says, "I want death." The hull of the alien is impenetrable by
diamond drill, cutting torch, or cyclotron bombardment. Still, the alien
passively sits in its cradle endlessly reciting its name--VOR. The same
linguist who has cracked the alien's language and has been able to communicate
with also poses theories as to why the alien needs a temperature so high, that
consumes so much energy, and why it wants death in the first place. The train
of logic proves to be true when the once stagnant alien ambles forward and
announces, "Why will you not kill me... you have not tried... there is no
more time."

------------

The first forty-six pages (of 159 pages) are a slog to get through. With
the initial observation of he object amid the forest fire and the levels of
bureaucracy to commit an action plan, the pages are studded with decent
attempts at creating a sympathetic, downbeat man--Marty Petrucelli. It feels
like the novel is going nowhere, likes its one big hoax in the plot or one big
hoax on the reader, until, "The nose was a circular door or airlock. It
opened. It came out" (46-47). This is the fulcrum where the entire book
tips from mundane bureaucratic red-tape to full throttle alien communication
mystery!

The investigation of the radioactive alien and its gradually cooling
craft proves to be some of the most enticing mysteries served up in any science
fiction book, on par with Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. The
entire situation of the alien's arrival and the alien's condition spawns so
many questions and ignites the fire of possibility within the reader. It's a
short read, so the momentum through the remaining pages is difficult to carry
the reader through. For the most part, Blish is successful.

However, Blish is not immune to abrupt awkward plot transitions. At a
crucial scene of action, Blish takes six full pages to detail the starting
sequence for an old propeller plane and its ascent to the sky above Grand Rapids. This wholly
kills all the momentum Blish had written prior to the transition. What follows
feels like a hastily written, though fairly convincing, conclusion in the
remaining nine pages. It may be a tad too simple, but I had a feeling that the
course taken would be the same course I had plotted in my mind.

Marty as a sympathetic character is hard to like. He seems to rely on
his fear of flight on basis alone, without having to tell anyone WHY he's taken
an oath not to fly after hisservice in
WWII. Eventually, the truth is revealed and any respect the reader has for
Marty is evaporated. Given that his wife is running around behind his back at
the same time, Blish wrote the tale of a hero who is as unlikable as the
situation he finds himself in.

VOR may be a tad boring at the onset and a tad predictable near the end,
but sandwiched in between the two is an excellent, excellent mystery which will
have the reader's blood a-boil with anticipation. In the last chapter, Chapter 10,
the escalation of excitement is over and Blish pens a short epilogue of Marty's
ranting about heroism, victory, and a possible Oedipus complex.

If Cities in Flight was written with the same fervor of mystery and
enjoyment as Blish did in VOR, the four novels of the collection may have felt
like a carnival more than a chore. Where Blish lacks in sophistication here he
makes up for in enticement and excitement.